The real estate industry, and every industry at that, is facing a forced evolution due to new and more innovative technological tools that benefit tenants and owners alike. This new age calls for a swift revamp in the ways developers, owners, operators, and tenants function and communicate.

There are common laments from the listing agents, managers and developers of homes in new communities, high-rises, and/or resorts. “Vacant homes are a challenge to sell. Units filled with worn or dated furnishings are a turn-off, too!” If the rooms in your online listing are calling out for new paint, furnishings or décor, chances are buyers will ignore it. Let’s face it, you can’t sell or rent a home unless buyers and renters see it, but they won’t come see it unless they see beautiful photographs that showcase the property’s true potential.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, many industries have suffered a significant downturn and experienced declining investment. But real-estate, which was at the very heart of the global financial meltdown, seems to have bucked the trend.

Like most other industries and businesses, real estate landscape too is being significantly affected by the technological advancements that we are making. We are on the brink of many interesting tech trends that are both exciting and course-altering.

For years, the narrative about the commercial real estate industry’s relationship with technology was one of missed opportunity. While many business sectors quickly latched onto the technological revolution of the 1990s, commercial real estate professionals by and large maintained the status quo for their day-to-day operations, which on some level kept the industry from realizing the benefits of widespread technology adoption.

Commercial real estate has historically relied on outdated and disparate systems, using spreadsheets and CRM tools to house mountains of data. But these systems don't talk to each other. That's a huge problem causing landlords, brokers and asset managers to waste countless hours digging through multiple systems to answer even one simple question. It also makes it near impossible to see the big picture.

One major factor of running a successful real estate business is instant and accurate delivery of information. In our hyper-contacted global market, consumers no longer want to wait 24 hours or even a few hours for answers. They know they can either search for them online or head over to your competition. Today's real estate market is customer-driven and marked by low customer loyalty.

As much as we like to think that sales is about relationships, it is really a numbers game. Brokers that acknowledge this can add a degree of predictability to their business by analyzing and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). Unfortunately, many brokers ignore the importance of these metrics, measure the wrong or incomplete information, or lack a system for tracking results. That’s a shame, since brokers can use KPIs to prospect better, grow and improve their business, and forecast with more confidence. Here’s how.

Flexibility, nimbleness, and fast-paced changeability characterize tech companies today, but also apply to the cities in which tech companies thrive. The successful “fast fish” lives in both public and private waters, highlighting an implicit truth that private enterprise and public policy must work in parallel to engender a healthy tech ecosystem.

“The future ain’t what it used to be” famously uttered by the wise and pithy baseball star, Yogi Berra is increasingly becoming a reality in the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) sphere. That future in 2016 looks radically different than it did even a decade ago and will be transformed again in the decades to come. And while the CRE landscape has changed irrevocably, the primary driver of these disruptions is constant…technology.

How much of your time do you actually spend engaged in money-making activities? It’s probably a lot less than you think. Between talking to clients, driving, visiting properties, and working with engineers to develop concept plans, you are kept constantly on the run and your prospecting and presentation time suffer greatly.

Commercial real estate has commanded a meaningful presence at SXSW for years and even has a unique industry track correct? WRONG! Why is that? Isn’t experiential marketing (aka engagement marketing) a cornerstone of the festival by effectively connecting people, businesses, and physical spaces?

You’ve heard it before. You know it by heart. Location, location location: this triplicate is informally known as the golden rule of property-owning. Where a building stands absolutely defines the success of its endeavors within. The mantra, though simplistic, is tried and true.

Co-working spaces are the offices of the future. Co-living spaces may be soon to follow.

Over the course of a few years, co-working spaces quickly caught on and popped up in cities across the country. Instead of sitting alone at a coffee shop working on a startup or freelance work, people could rent an actual desk in an office environment and socialize with people in similar positions. Now with the emergence of co-living spaces, residents can rent a one-bedroom unit, or a bedroom in a multi-bedroom unit, that offers shared amenities, a community-vibe, and entertaining social events.

It’s been around for a few years. In my opinion, it’s the most significant marketing strategy for brands that I have seen throughout my 30 year career in the PR and media space. It’s a big idea. Perhaps an evolution of “native advertising” but in a much more engaging, ongoing and sustainable manner.

Disclaimer: I too am running a start up focused on the real estate industry and fighting the good fight every single day! I don’t have any magic formula and I am certainly not counting the gazillions of dollars I have made selling my site to Facebook/Google.

It’s difficult to place a monetary value on the financial loss due to having unhappy residents. We all know that creating a community that you are excited to be a part of will make it a lot easier to pick up that piece of paper and put it in the trash, because you take pride in where you live. The value of a good, loyal tenant that does not want to move, and cares about the property has been well documented, but hard to define monetarily. It is always good business to find and keep a good tenant.

Like many others, in the early years of my career in property management I started off in leasing. Generating leads for the apartments was the biggest challenge, I would start off every week by dropping off fliers around all the retail in the area advertising the specials we were running that week, I would then place for rent ads in the local rental magazines and call the leads from the previous week.

In 2013 there were 13 million single family rentals in the U.S. now there are over 15.3 million and only 200,000 of them are owned by institutional investors. That means most single family rentals are controlled by folks just like my parents who need an easy solution to take care of their rentals. And TenantCloud was built to help them.

By 2020 about half of the workforce will be made up of millennials. Here are three general ideas that can help to improve the relationship between an office building and these younger, technology-driven building tenants.

Quality website design is a major element in your consumer-facing marketing plan. What are the key elements of good real estate website design and what should be included? Here's what you need to know!